Hillsongs Fall From Grace

Introduction

This one will certainly be a convoluted one as I do have some of my own reasons for being interested in this particular story or scandal as it were. It may come as a surprise to some of you that I’m not a terribly religious person, however my family is a different story altogether. So back in the late 2000’s my parents and sister actually were involved with a church called North Point Church. Now I’m going to start this off with a little section about NPC and some of the things I ultimately ended up learning about them, and how all of this connects back to Hillsong.

Chapter 1 - North Point Church

Sometime around 2006 my parents had just discovered a brand new church in town that was really making a name for itself kind of overnight. Everyone was really hyped up by the incredibly positive services that were full of very upbeat music. My sister even told me it was more like going to a rock concert than to church. My parents tried multiple times to get me to accompany them but I really never have been much for going to church. However in 2009 I found myself at a low point and I ended up taking my parents up on their invitation to come to a service.

The first thing I noticed was that this certainly was not a typical church building. If anything it looked like a large version of a pole barn that had been enclosed and then had some interior work put in, nothing that a solid crew couldn’t come in and have taken down in time for the cattle auction should the need ever arise. But the auditorium was definitely its own kind of spectacle, with a very large stage, and lighting displays that would have made any rock band envious. Lots of  laser lights, and intricate displays. I couldn’t dispute the fact that the services were indeed very uplifting and positive. The pastor was incredibly charismatic and had a way of making you feel a part of something so much bigger than yourself.

It was a very nice thing at first. I even started throwing into the collection plate from time to time as I was able to do so. I wasn’t going every week or anything, and after a couple of months I started getting more invested in other things and I kind of fell off going. Not too long after my last time of attending my parents stopped inviting me, they stopped attending regularly, and they seemed much less excited about going. My sister was friends with one of the administrators' daughters and at some point she kind of pulled me aside and started filling me in on some things. First she started telling me why they had gradually started becoming less involved with NPC was because the services started becoming less positive. Over time they had become a lot… darker and were hyper focused on certain things such as deception and infidelity.

The more this became a trend the more my family had kind of walked away when they did. My sister however maintained her friendship with the admin’s daughter and she got some really juicy bits of information that later on came out and scandalized the entire church and compromised its entire future. You see there was a certain amount of tongue in cheek in some of those very on the nose sermons. It started becoming a known thing amongst the administrators that the Pastor was in fact conducting multiple affairs with married women. By the time things were becoming public enough that it was a full blown scandal it was even deeper than just some extramarital affairs. The Pastor was building a harem, a stated goal. While this was happening other members of the administration were lining their pockets with money from the church’s coffers while pretending to look the other way at the Pastor’s dalliances.

Now I feel like I should take a minute here to explain that prior to all this scandalous stuff coming out it was common knowledge that NPC was in fact trying to get into Hillsong’s “world wide network”. Everything about the church from its earliest days was directly modeled on Hillsong and they had opened a second church and were trying to turn it into an entire campus much as Hillsong had in their major locations such as New York. So having all this in my head and hearing about the sheer scale of the corruption at the highest ranks of this, what at the time was a rapidly expanding church, it really gave me pause. If this kind of thing was going on to the extent it was, how could they possibly hope to become part of this massive worldwide church? And sadly the answer to that is: What was going on at NPC was pretty par for the course and in many ways far more tame than what would later be found out about the goings on within Hillsong.

Chapter 2 - A Little Background

Now I’m not going to sit here and inundate you with the entire history of Hillsong but I will give a brief explanation because I’m sure at least some of the people hearing this know little if anything about Hillsong. So I’ll offer an outline here:

In 1984 Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie founded Hills Christian Life Center in Baulkham Hills, New South Wales, Australia. Over the course of the 80s and 90s the Hills CLC rapidly began to grow into a “megachurch”. What primarily fueled this astonishing growth was a huge influx of young people who were attracted to the church’s contemporary brand of worship music. They also began very early on to seed other churches internationally which also helped bolster the size and reach of Hills CLC.

The primary draw has always been the music of Hills CLC. In fact the name Hillsong was originally the name of the band that performed at the services. But the music became such a driving force behind the growth of the church and became so synonymous with the church that it officially rebranded as Hillsong. The church even has its own brand Hillsong Music Australia which produces all of the music associated with the church and its subsidiaries. They have produced no fewer than 40 albums since 1992. Hillsong Live (later renamed Hillsong Worship) produced albums that all achieved gold status. The entire operation helps sustain the church and its constant global expansion. Such a driving force in their revenue stream that Hillsong Music has sold more than 60 million albums and earns in the ballpark of 100 million dollars a year.

One of the ways Hillsong has entrenched itself within modern worship is by licensing its music to other churches all over the world. If you’ve attended a Christian religious service anytime since 2014 and the music was memorable and not exactly in the traditional hymnal style, then you have probably experienced Hillsong Music and never stepped foot in a Hillsong church.

Chapter 3 - Hillsong NYC

The Hillsong campus in New York is one of the largest in the world, and whoever presides over the world famous service is kind of a celebrity in their own right by default. Carl Lentz really took the Hillsong brand to a whole different level during his tenure at Hillsong NYC. He was young, very charismatic and had this way of connecting with the audience in a way that felt like every word he said was being spoken directly to you and only you. The sermons themselves were very powerful and moving, and everything about Carl just drew you in and made you want to trust him. In many ways that would probably be considered the first red flag. He very much has that “X” factor. Always quick with a joke, and was just over all a very magnetic and approachable kind of guy. Though it was also very clear that he cared a lot about his appearance and presentation. Carl always dressed well, his style was trendy and you could tell he spent no small amount of time staying in shape.

Carl Lentz wasn’t the only incredibly charismatic member of the church though. Of course the main point of contact in any church, especially one as large as Hillsong NYC will be the other parishioners. And Hillsong NYC hosts one of the most diverse congregations anywhere in the world. Just showing up for a service the people make you feel like you have always belonged there. Then of course are the welcome teams. Once you arrive these people will do everything they can to make you feel, well, welcome. The sheer amount of positivity could possibly be overwhelming for some people.

Carl Lentz is also highly memorable for his close relationship with Justin Bieber. During a time where being closely associated with the Biebs was kind of toxic for your image Carl Lentz did not shy away from the troubled young man. In fact he became something of a mentor to Justin. This could be seen as incredibly symbiotic as far as relationships go. For Justin at a time when it really needed to seem like he was trying to improve himself the public relationship with Carl Lentz was exactly what he needed and for Carl being around someone as in the mainstream public eye as Justin Bieber only pushed Hillsong more into that same mainstream flow. Now millions of Justin Bieber fans were getting exposed to Carl Lentz and that made them want to be part of the same church as their icon.

Some people even say that at a certain point Carl Lentz even became more synonymous with Hillsong than Brian Houston. That is just how powerful his charisma was. Not to mention Carl was now the pastor to the celebrities. Justin Bieber was just the first of a number of famous people who began to attend Hillsong regularly. Eventually there was even a VIP section for the celebrity parishioners to kind of have their own little space, effectively turning the church into a tiered society. At the time Hillsong NYC was pulling in more money than any other Hillsong location on the planet. But the rifts that began to form between Brian and Carl would ultimately expose more corruption than anyone ever thought possible.

Chapter 4 - Carl Lentz’s Downfall

Things had started racing towards a moment of “critical mass” that was going to leave the world in shock. All the warning signs were there, Carl was becoming more arrogant and full of himself. In his own way Carl had become a cult leader to a lot of young people. There were clearly a lot of people that idolized him, they were dressing like him, trying to emulate him. Growing beyond the megachurch that he had taken into the stratosphere, Carl Lentz was now the most recognizable figure associated with the world wide ministry of Hillsong.

When dealing with something like spirituality and religion you have to be so incredibly careful of your entire message, your entire brand becoming too entangled with one person that has seemingly transcended the movement. Because pastor or not we’re all human and we are all one moment of poor judgment from ruining our own lives and images, much less an entire religious organization. Carl Lentz was about to be an embodiment of this in all the worst possible ways, for himself and especially for Hillsong.

Prior to becoming the pastor of Hillsong NYC Carl Lentz had attended Hillsong Bible College in Australia where he met his wife Laura. After graduating Carl returned to his home in Virginia Beach where he and Laura became the young adult pastors for Wave Church. The senior pastor there, Steve Kelly, worked at Hillsong Church for a decade before moving to Virginia Beach to become the senior pastor at Wave. As such much of the style and structure of Wave was heavily influenced by Hillsong

Very early into Carl’s tenure things began to change. The culture, the values, the very community began to change. The role he had been selected to fill really began to change. His style was vastly different from what the attendees had gotten used to. Carl liked to exercise a little bit of control over the congregation. When it came to relationships and dating he especially had a litany of “rules” that he expected everyone to adhere to. Things such as “Date for a whole year before you have your first kiss”, “You don’t say ‘I love you’ until you propose.” While his predecessor had been more compassionate and understanding of relationship dynamics Carl was not quite as gentle. He allegedly shamed couples, especially young women who spoke to him in confidence about struggles with “purity” or told him they had engaged in premarital sex.

Early on in his time at Wave the recurring theme of “sexual purity” began to emerge in his sermons, this trend as well as his attitudes towards sex and relationships would follow him into his service at Hillsong NYC. And over time it became an even more frequent topic during his services. It ended up being quite telling, really. The entire topic came up so frequently that a lot of the people hearing these sermons kind of began to feel this was something he struggled with; especially when he would openly say that before he met Laura he was a “player”. 

In May of 2020 Carl began an extramarital affair with a woman named Ranin Karim, whom had actually attended Hillsong years prior. Everything ended up moving very fast and was very intense. Ranin and Carl were together for five months, during which time Carl manipulated and controlled this woman. If it wasn’t convenient for him or not what he wanted then it just did not happen. It became very clear that he was the star of his own show and everyone else was just a bit player.  Multiple times when Ranin sought to end the relationship Carl just would not let her walk away on her terms. 

On November 4, 2020 there was an announcement from Brian Houston saying that Carl Lentz was no longer part of Hillsong NYC. Carl reached out to tell the woman he had been seeing that his wife knew, and the church knew and that they had found out from his computer at his office. From there Carl made a big post on Instagram explaining everything and that he and Laura had both been fired, despite Laura’s conduct never being an issue. During the final time that Ranin and Carl spoke, Lentz told her that he had paid a lot of money to keep her name buried so no one would know who she was and for her not to worry.

This did not really sit well with Ranin, who felt that Carl was trying to control her and dictate her story while denying her a chance to speak for herself. So Ranin contacted a reporter and the fallout from this entire mess would leave few things untouched. Already Brian Houston and Hillsong were distancing themselves from Carl. And while Carl was the first one to come out and admit to his adultery Brian Houston was far more vague with his wording in regard to Carl Lentz being fired.

You see it turns out that Carl Lentz already had a reputation as a womanizer going back to his days at Wave. Numerous people witnessed Carl making inappropriate advances towards women, or had their own experience with him acting inappropriately towards them. Also in the days following Carl Lentz’s dismissal while Brian Houston had tried to say there had never been any indication of this kind of behavior from Carl before the affair with Ranin came to light there had in fact been multiple reports of “sexual impropriety” brought against Carl Lentz by two former volunteers. The church however accused them of fabricating these allegations and dismissed them from their positions at Hillsong. 

A lot of people believe that, while there’s no concrete evidence to support this, Carl Lentz was “eliminated” because there were rumors that Laura and Carl were about to leave Hillsong and Lentz had become so much more popular than Brian or the church itself that he was going to take a huge number of people with him and so as kind of a parting shot Brian Houston did his best to tarnish Carl’s reputation while trying to not make Hillsong look complicit in his immoral behavior, which it absolutely was. Because the entire time Carl was beneficial to “the empire” Brian Houston and most of the Hillsong Administrators were happy to rake in the cash that Carl had attracted to Hillsong and look the other way while Carl Lentz chased skirts and fame. But the moment he might be leaving and taking money out of Hillsong’s coffers? Then he’s fired for “questionable leadership qualities and moral decision making”.

Chapter 5 - Aftermath

I’m sorry to say that the entire scandal around Carl Lentz and his ultimate, if satisfying, downfall is not the real end of the story. No, it really was just the first crack in the facade of Hillsong and its image. After it further came out that Carl Lentz had been involved in a second affair and he had admitted to having an Adderall addiction during his time at Hillsong there were a lot more eyes on Brian Houston and the upper echelons of the Hillsong hierarchy. The very notion that Brian Houston, the big boss of the largest church in the world had no idea that things like this were going on only made more people curious.

Carl Lentz was the super star of Hillsong and if he had been engaged in things like extra marital affairs while entertaining an illicit drug habit how could someone like Brian Houston not know these kinds of things were going on? And now the berg starts to become more clear. In the days that followed Carl Lentz’s expulsion from the church more and more stuff began to surface. Reports that ranged from mistreatment of volunteers, racism, sexual harassment, bullying were becoming more common. Then people began finding evidence that a lot of church money was being paid out, and the reasons for these payouts were to silence victims. Silence victims? Silence who’s victims? Well, Frank Houston’s victims.

I’m not going to dive into the atrocities that are said to have been committed by Frank Houston, nor the ones committed by Brian. I will just begin wrapping this up by saying that because Brian Houston decided to fire Carl Lentz in what could be considered an act of pettiness trying to cite the affair with Ranin as the excuse, he ultimately set the stage for his own downfall. Brian Houston and a lot of people got very rich while looking the other way as people indulged in despicable behaviors. Brian Houston also paid out a lot of money so people would overlook not only his father’s horrific crimes but inappropriate things Brian Houston got up to as well. These days Brian Houston is no longer the leader of Hillsong.

When the crimes of his father Frank began coming to light Brian Houston was arrested for his role in concealing these crimes. Houston resigned from his position as the global senior minister for Hillsong as a result of his arrest and has since stepped completely aside and ended all association with Hillsong. Although he allegedly has plans to form a new church and new community, which was supposed to have begun in 2024, at the time of this writing there is no real word on if this has actually gone anywhere.

Conclusion

In the case of institutions like Hillsong, and like NPC I think it’s bitterly ironic that the second these places become a success, the instant they become a success then they have failed. Because as soon as a church, or more specifically, as soon as a man hits a certain level and he can play jump rope with the line of morality and then just make his mistakes go away and “make it right” by spending a little money on shushing a victim and their family up that does seem to be the path even allegedly righteous men walk. Although I think calling men like Frank and Brian Houston or Carl Lentz truly righteous men is more than a little bit absurd. That probably goes without saying though.